How ARKit 2 works, and why Apple is so focused on AR - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/06/arkit-2-why-apple-keeps-pushing-ar-and-how-it-works-in-ios-12/ <comment><USER3> AR I think needs killer apps and utilities. The AR measuring app is a good example if it works accurately.

Other AR apps/ideas I think would be killer are...

\- AR historic view: wave phone or point glasses at a location and see how it looked year's ago via pics & a 3D model or maybe a mix. Make me feel I stepped back in time and have a Disney like feel/experience to it.

\- AR night time/day time view: At nighttime view in glasses how it looks during the day

\- AR Linkedin/Facebook: Know the strangers name your talking to and all their public iNet info via glasses view

<comment><USER4> > AR Linkedin/Facebook: Know the strangers name your talking to and all their > public iNet info via glasses view

A killer app indeed; it'd kill AR. At least I like to think we aren't so far gone that as a society we can't see _how wrong that would be_.

<comment><USER5> I am apparently gone because I've always wanted that - in fact it's the only intelligent-assistant application concept I've heard which is appealing. What is so wrong about it?

<comment><USER6> When you can instantly see the salary data and criminal history of everyone you meet, we can very quickly spiral into dystopia.

It's also likely inevitable. Every time you tag someone in a Facebook photo you are helping this happen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems like AR is a lot more approachable than VR in that you don't have to strap on so much gear to immerse yourself into a Virtual Based / Enhanced reality. Even Snap seems to be invested in AR if you think about it, how many snaps don't feature some augmented visuals? If people go crazy over that to the point that Facebook, and even iOS steals that type of AR functionality, there must be more to AR than meets the eye.

To a computer geek it may not seem impressive now, but to the average person it casually sneaks up into their everyday life.

<comment><USER8> It seems as if VR is one of those things where getting to 90% isn't very useful for most people and even if you get to essentially 100% (wireless, usable with mainstream processing power, comfortable lightweight goggles), it may not be all that interesting outside of some niches like certain types of gaming or virtual worlds. A lot of the time people don't want to be immersed.

AR, on the other hand, is very amenable to incremental development. You don't need a Google Glass 2.0 with all the technical and social challenges associated with that. A phone that you can point at something and get information about it is already useful.

<comment><USER9> I think VR is forever destined to be a niche sideline. Seems like I've been hearing that VR is about to take off every few years since the 90s. It resolutely fails to do so and aside from some "wow" at tech demos and games there's no killer VR app that makes it a must have.

AR is much more instantly obvious to all with things like Night Sky and augmented maps.

<comment><USER8> In some ways, you could almost argue that VR (and immersive experiences generally) has garnered less interest as it's become closer to reality. The Kinect is gone. The Wii fad is over. The VR devices that do exist have pretty much highlighted the difficulty of creating fully immersive experiences, especially in a typical home environment. And, as you say, there's really been nothing that makes the typical or even not so typical person go "I gotta get some of that VR."

I suppose we may get there someday but it may also be one of those things that it seemed logical to assume people would want (and many thought they did), but they mostly don't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The first killer app for AR was probably Word Lens (translating images of words in real time) and that debuted in 2010. Then Pokemon Go 6 years later. I can't think of anything else that has caught on. Seems like a really exciting paradigm, but no one has figured out anything useful to do with it.

<comment><USER11> Has World Lens ever caught on though? Honest question, I don't have any data but I have never used it nor seen anyone else using it.

<comment><USER12> Its now built into google translate (at least on my Android, no idea about iOS). It works offline and I've used it occasionally while staying in Hongkong. Was pretty useful.

<comment><USER13> I use it a lot when travelling. (In google translate) it's great.

<comment><USER8> Google Translate is a great example of how incremental iterations of AR can still be useful. It's on a phone and not some fancy glasses and the translations aren't really very good but it's still really handy especially if you can't even read the script of the language in question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I get most excited about VR when I think about the physical ways we currently augment reality with ugly physical objects.

If AR becomes truly ubiquitous, I hope that signs and signals can most fade away. Imagine walking through a city without street signs or advertisements or stoplights, or walking through an art museum without any labels on the wall, or an airport without screens and arrows pointing you around.

I'm also interested (but also concerned) from a consumer perspective—Amazon etc. will offer Shazaam for literally any object. Like her dress? Buy instantly. That house is tinted green because you qualify for a loan that could purchase it, but the newer one next door is tinted red. Follow the glowing footprints around that corner if you want the slice of cake that person is eating in the park.

Most of all, I want to take a walk in the woods and be able to identify any tree, fungus, flower or bird instantly and beautifully. AR will hopefully let us take intelligent guided tours of almost anywhere. Learn about architecture as you walk to work, trace important sites out the window of an airplane onto the ground below, see a bustling Mayan market animated over what is now a set of rectangular fields.

<comment><USER15> In that future world it's going to be pretty tough getting around if you're homeless and/or can't afford AR...

<comment><USER14> We don't have much in the way of pedestrian navigation right now, apart from crosswalks and such. But you're right that perhaps crosswalks that cars must yield to (California style) should be the last to go.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The only thing I want to be able to do in AR is walk around historical sites like the Colosseum and hold up my phone to see what something looked like millennia ago as I walk around.

</comment><comment><USER17> What would really take AR to the next level is something like Google glass, where you're essentially always in AR.

The only downside is that you'd have to wear extra glasses, which might not be ideal if you already wear prescription, and that the technology is way too expensive for most people.

But overall, I don't think an AR boom is that far away.

<comment><USER18> Well, if sci-fi is the model of where the tech is going, we'll probably be using contact lenses or implants when the tech "crosses the chasm", so to speak.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> It's really interesting Apple has put the overkill face ID sensor in the iPhone. I'm sure future iPad's will have the same too, possibly with even better hardware.

I also believe accurate tracking of the eyes of the user will have tremendous impact on the applications that can exploit AR.

AR is a tremendously promising field and Apple has gone the easy way, to capture the market and developer mind share. Oculus Rifts' and HoloLens' have failed to adequately capture developer mindshare as on date.

Just look at the measure app. It's a tremendously useful app. Though I know it will not have much accuracy, it will satisfy most use cases for normal users.

I am excited about the future of AR apps. I can see a lot of potential applications in Engineering, Medical, Civil surveying, etc.

</comment><comment><USER20> Not too many AR apps have succeeded, only because the massively-available AR hardware is not here, yet. The phone with a camera is not it. You can only do that much within that paradigm.

The moment (hopefully it's coming) we have (relatively) normal-looking glasses capable to perform like the Magic Leap's headset (haven't tried it - <USER2> judging by the publicly available info and investments), that's when handheld devices become obsolete and that's when we will see AR pick-up and win.

<comment><USER8> You can do a lot with a phone and there's no social stigma associated with walking around with a smartphone. It's an open question for me whether Glassholes 2.0 become a thing even once the tech is there. (Certainly there's a role in niches like doing repairs where information can be overlaid but I'm not convinced it will become a thing when just walking around.)

<comment><USER21> Viewing the world through your phone's screen/camera lens is just not a great experience.

Having stuff just "appear" is way better. Remains to be seen how this will play out in the short run, but the fantasy is something like smart contact lenses.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Surely it look very cool in demos and on screen but It was just hype and will be just hype until there is major breakthrough because of below reason.

\- It is because you can not use AR everytime and results are not consistent and not work in all environment unlinke touch which can be used everytime perfectly.

\- Battery and heating problem with AR on phones.

\- Intreaction is major problem.

Intreaction with glasses and all those things is very akward and really not comfortable.

I think we have to go long way to have enable the AR.

</comment><comment><USER23> What I find disappointing is that Apple is leveling the field against independent developers. Was there really a need for an official measurement app, to destroy the market of the ones that are already on the app store? What's the deal with USDZ? It looks like it will be fundamental for developing AR content for apps on iOS, and they give the market away to Adobe and their paid solution, that is not even finished. Sure, it is an open specification so "anybody can compete", but, if Adobe, with all its resources, gets such a head start, how can indies compete? These two things, to me, are signals that Apple intends only the big players to participate, and, as an independent developer, discourage me from investing on AR development on iOS.

</comment><comment><USER24> Does anyone know of a decent AR headset for someone to hack around with?

<comment><USER25> Project North Star from Leap Motion seems like an affordable DIY solution if you don't mind getting your hands dirty.

[http://blog.leapmotion.com/north-star-open- source/](http://blog.leapmotion.com/north-star-open-source/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Could the arkit functions be useful for robotics?

</comment><comment><USER26> I'm really excited by this stuff but I can't think of a useful or interesting project to do with it. Any ideas?

<comment><USER27> Translate foreign signs in place, augment plane tickets with realtime flight details, see products in your house before you buy them... just off top of my head.

<comment><USER28> I think the concept of "live" paper via AR will be much more popular than most expect. Tickets, like you mentioned, are a great example. Other things could be the ability to flip through different revisions of a printed document or the ability for multiple people to mark up and annotate the same paper document.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I think they missed one of the more valuable potential ones that I'd like to see, and it would be yet another extension of something Apple has made a pretty core selling point: privacy and security, specifically enhancing Face ID with a very natural coercion code type system. If a future Face ID 2.0/3.0 system is capable of fast and wide field enough facial and expression/sentiment recognition, then it could be possible to not merely have a binary lock/unlock based on face and attention, but add in expression/sentiment as something else as well, and give it other levels of transparent unlock. So it'd be possible for users to make a full unlock require a specific expression, or alternately (or additionally) have it recognize another expression and trigger other actions. This could at a minimum include disabling Face ID (similarly to pressing a button 5 times) or even triggering an erase, but even better could also leverage Apple's improvements to their granular data encryption system to "unlock like normal" except that apps and content the user had marked as sensitive would not be decrypted and simply not show up on the system in any way at all.

Of course this could be done with PIN codes too and I hope that would be an addition, but it'd particularly natural using faces and having the system be able to actively look for signs of distress. Apple is in a real position to do this in an extremely user friendly way and it'd be a huge boon for personal privacy and security.

In fact leveraged even farther and using more data points (even just GPS and time of day) I think Apple could make a framework that could go beyond just privacy/security and into helping everyone better handle their usage of mobile devices (which is something else they are clearly at least aware of). Imagine being able to create "views", where underneath granular key release is utilized to allow a user to make any arbitrary set of apps/data be visible or unavailable, and then be able to assign arbitrary trigger conditions for what view the phone shows at any given time. It'd be possible to have a device with personal entertainment, social media, communications and such and also work related material and hobby material and create hard barriers between all them. At work entire or certain times of day entire bits of distraction would simply vanish, totally transparently and without effort, while at home vice versa could happen. While traveling everything but a few key travel apps could go. Users could set it so that financial apps could only be accessed easily at secure geographic locations. All under the control of the owner, and it'd help with self control and information overload, allowing owners to pick the right set of data to take their attention for the right setting. And of course it'd ensure that even if threatened sensitive material could have been made unavailable ahead of time.

I'd love that, I think it'd leverage a lot of Apple's strengths and existing frameworks anyway, and that it'd be a real step forward for getting a handle on the ever increasing amount of stuff being thrown at us.

<comment><USER30> "How did you accidentally erase your phone?" "I sneezed at the wrong time."

Apple makes secure devices but doesn't go for the type of customizable security you're interested in, I imagine because the number of people compelled to unlock their phone under duress is so small as to be negligible. I hope.

<comment><USER29> > _"How did you accidentally erase your phone?" "I sneezed at the wrong > time."_

This seems like an exceptionally and unfairly reductionist, close minded and bad faith reading. I only gave that as one example option, and if you actually consider it it's easy to imagine that there could be restrictions like "You must have Backups on to enable this option". Or it could just not go that far, it wouldn't subtract from the overall feature at all.

> _I imagine because the number of people compelled to unlock their phone > under duress is so small as to be negligible._

I don't think that's a safe assumption at all, particularly outside the first world (or even in the first world considering how borders are hardening). Apple like anyone (more then many corps in fact given their startup-type org structure) must prioritize features and build up, and considers new things as the world changes and as their foundations continue to improve. They didn't always have FDE at all. They didn't always have the network lockdown to discourage theft. They didn't have biometric auth, until they did. They spent a lot of time and effort building up their HSM implementations, it wasn't there day 1. They are only now in iOS 12 apparently planning to push out a lock down of the wired port. Etc etc.

Finally, you completely ignored how these same measures would fit into another major current public issue and just announced Apple effort: allowing people to get "digital addiction"/information overload under control. There are multiple compelling lines here of which privacy/security are just one angle.

[EDIT] - Edited to add an example of the above from just this past WWDC: HN discussion on "iOS 12 introduces new features to reduce interruptions and manage Screen Time": [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17230469](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17230469)

"Views" or however Apple chose to convey/brand it would be a great extension of that. "While I'm doing X, I only want to see Y" with a nice GUI is something that makes intuitive sense, it's how our lives tend to be ordered anyway IRL. GUIs got started by leveraging real world systems and symbols, and while that of course can be overdone and be too restrictive I don't think it's played out yet either at all. Lots of people don't bring work home with them or home to work but rather try to maintain a separation. Why shouldn't our digital devices be capable of automatically supporting that partitioning?</comment></comment></comment>


Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank - <AUTHOR> http://www.projectorpm.com/blog/2012/04/03/building-a-product-one-month-later-11950-in-the-bank/

<comment><USER3> Awesome. And definitely don't be discouraged that you're only bringing in $100/month.

The product that I'm currently living comfortably off of made me less than half that much after its first month. Don't think of it as $100/month, think of it as $100/month/month. That's your current acceleration, and it extrapolates out quite nicely!

Here's a more carefully worded version of my take on products like this:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3052661>

<comment><USER4> Thanks. I agree with your post. Sales for CupcakeWrapperCreator have gone like this:

      March	          0.02
      April	         38.85
      May	         64.75
      June	         76.75
      July	        122.60
      August	 99.80
      September	129.75
      October	109.75
      November	199.60
      December	119.75
      January	149.70
      February      249.45
      March	        369.25

So, for nearly a year I didn't have any motivation to do more work, but then I signed up for a free month of SEOMOZ, and just fixed the low hanging fruit from their suggestions, and traffic doubled for last Feb.

So now it's a little more interesting. I can make $369 in a month with 150 uniques per day. What can I do with 300-500 uniques per day? And I think I can get there easy because just one blog comment I made is responsible for 20 uniques per day and I know I can outrank that blog page with a little work.

<comment><USER5> You think seeding some of your designs on pinterest might pique interest further? If anything, it can be a "proving grounds" for your newest wrapper designs.

<comment><USER6> Oh oh oh, try it try it! Pin your designs!

Do. It. Now.

Pinterest is definitely a good place for these kind of products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice post! Just a UI suggestion, you want to make it as easy as possible for readers of your blog to learn what your product is about. Currently, clicking on the big blue "Projector" text only brings you to the blog's home page, not the site's home page. There is a small link at the very top of the screen that says "Learn more about Projector," which does take you back to the home page, but you might want a more prominently placed button, image, or text link. The big blue "Projector" text really looks like it should take you back to the site's home page, and I actually thought for a moment that /blog was in fact the same page I'd get to from the root of your site.

<comment><USER8> This is a big pet peeve of mine. I can't count the number of times I've been to <http://blog.companyname.com> and no matter where on the page I looked or clicked, I couldn't find a link to <http://companyname.com>, and so I'm forced to manually edit the URL in the address bar. I really can't understand why a company would do such a thing.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the disconnect is the top left logo usually returns to a "root", which in the case of a blog is the blog index. Frankly, it might be better to have that go to the home page.

<comment><USER3> Ah, but the only person who considers the "root" of your product blog to be the blog home is you.

Everybody else thinks they're reading a blog on your product site, and that clicking the logo will take you to the root of that. In other words, the homepage for your product. When it doesn't, they tend to simply hit the back button enough times to leave.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. BTW, I just changed this. Clicking the logo while at the blog now returns you to /

<comment><USER9> Well done for fixing it so fast. You're really serious about being responsive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice to see Projector on HN; I'm one of the paying users (well, my company's paying).

I've found it to be a much better fit for my workflow than Pivotal/Basecamp etc. Brennan's been great at looking for feedback and keeping in touch with everyone so far (even if I am lax at replying). There's some real speed behind updates and it's improving every day.

Aside: Didn't sign up just to big the project up; I do have another account on HN which has been around longer, I just try not to associate my real name and nickname.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Rob, I really appreciate your feedback - and for being one of the earliest users, and thus had to deal with a substantial amount of bugs in its infancy :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Fantastic product. Just signed up with a throwaway and had a brief play. It was all really intuitive. No real problems really.

You should also try and show that you aren't just for companies who might have multiple projects on the go. We only have a single product and could see the benefit of something like this as a very rudamentary issue tracker and feature suggestions between the team.

\- What kind of a roadmap do you have (features primarily)?

\- How long has it taken you so far?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We tried being taking the opinionated route and not making a focused effort on having it be meant for internal product teams (I think Pivotal Tracker is probably still best for that.)

We're working on the following: \- Constant UI/UX improvements \- A better dashboard \- Metrics that will help you see how accurate your estimates were vs. reality. A lot of people are using Projector as a "living estimate" that they send to their clients. Since it's money focused, you can see in real time how adding and removing tasks affects the overall project budget. \- Better email integration \- A functioning mobile experience

It's taken about 3.5 months to get the product to where it is today.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Awesome! Must be such an amazing feeling to receive that first payment. I'm about a month away from my first launch and I'm terrified of launching and then hearing.... crickets. So congrats to you!

Had a look at the product. Looks v.solid. Just a couple of things:

\- When I attach a file via /projects/ _project_name_ /stories/ it completes the upload then the files seems to disappear? What I mean is that the progress indicator goes to 100% and nothing else happens. Then if I go back to root and back to stories there is no file.

\- I think you need labels on the 4 symbols on the left hand side. The only one which is self evident is the '?'. The others I have to hover over to find out about and that is annoying from a UX pov.

Cheers and good luck :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback!

To attach a file, you need to also comment (I realize now this might not always be ideal). But the workflow would be: Attach some files, enter text in the comment box, post. I'm working on redesigning the entire task detail page, which will hopefully make this less confusing.

I agree. I'm trying to figure out a good way to make this more evident without widening that left sidebar. This is the current UX problem that's keeping me up at night :-)

Thanks again, I really appreciate your feedback!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Worth it to discover Intercom - looks quite useful. I just wish it could directly access my tables.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well - I wouldn't go that far :-) But they have a great API (and a Rubygem to boot) that makes it simple to sync whatever data you want with them.

You can also setup tags. I have a "might pay" tag based on: 1) signs in often, 2) hasn't paid yet, 3) has added 5 or more tasks and features. These are people I like to keep an eye on and get to know :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I hope people don't get too hung up on the numbers thing to miss out on the great advice you give. With all the factors that contribute to a startups success, I think this post really nails some critical ones:

\- Create a list of people interested before you launch

\- Be proactive with support, consider it a sales tool

\- Have a great first use experience, that's when people are deciding to use your system.

Great post and well done on your success so far.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! The support thing is the reason I've had people pay me before they actually had to. I realize 2 minute response times isn't sustainable long term - but with the product in its infancy and still being battle tested, it's sort of necessary right now.

<comment><USER14> I don't see why 2 minute response times can't be sustainable, you just might need help with it down the track. I launched my SaaS product in June 2011, so am a bit further along than you and am still managing to maintain it.

I really hope people take your advice on board, I think those techniques made the difference for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> That is why people who have no drive to become entrepreneurs think that people like you are insane.....they're just missing the gene to "get it"....

</comment><comment><USER16> This actually looks really good. Congrats on the profit and good luck going forward. Good Article too, (saved for later)

</comment><comment><USER17> Great post! Nice to see others are looking at the long term plays and building great products. The post was refreshing to read and validates much of what I experienced over the last year building my apps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Would love to talk more about your experience and results. Feel free to ping me @brennandunn on Twitter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Congrats on your launch! Our first month, we had 9 paying customers, so very similar to you. But like the one commenter said, keep posting honest posts!

<comment><AUTHOR> Will do, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Just a small note, your website breaks the back button. It would be nice if it did not break the back button though.

<comment><AUTHOR> Marketing site or the app itself? The app is a Backbone app and uses pushState, which might be what you're experiencing. The marketing site... is just a normal site :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> How did you manage to get 500 subscribers before launch? Marketing? Leveraging existing networks? SEO?

<comment><AUTHOR> This is where some "celebrity" came into play. Since we weren't getting organic traffic (nothing to index but the sales letter) and didn't have a blog up (big mistake!), a few people with lots of Twitter followers RTed me. It's a lot easier to get signups to non-binding "I'll notify you once there's something build" than it is to get actual signups. Only about 20% of the announcement list ended up converting.

<comment><USER21> What did you mean by "converting"?

As in they signed up when you announced it was open, or paid? 100 signups on launch is still extremely useful for starting out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I am a big fan as well of not bothering to verify emails at the early stage. I figure that if I hit a problem with someone spamming my signup I can deal with that when it comes. Until then though having as little friction as possible is a great thing.

</comment><comment><USER6> Congratulations on your launch and getting your first few customers.

Would you mind to share your strategy on entering a crowded market (in this case, project management tools)?

Did you do any market research on your competitors?

<comment><AUTHOR> Edwin, I spent a lot of time reading freelancer forums and saw a lot of the same questions being asked: "How can I make invoice time less painful?", "I don't like being pestered with status update requests", and so on. Obviously, it's a very focused product - freelancers and consultants who want a tool aimed at bettering client relationships.

I didn't really do any market research, outside of having used other tools in the past. I think we have a very specific audience, and forum activity, etc. showed that there was a gap that had to be filled. We've already had quite a few users thanking us for building a tool that's making their clients happier (=== they make more money consulting!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Congratulations on getting it off the ground.

I searched through a few pages of your blog archives looking for your customer acquisition strategy, specifically search and ads. Can you tell us anything about that?

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely. So I'm not really running any ads (I did throw away $100 on an ad on clientsfromhell.net and got virtually _zero_ results).

My search strategy follows a lot of what patio11 covers here: <http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/>

Write relevant content for your audience (educational content: how they can better their lives or work) and promote where possible. I'll sometimes to go message boards for freelancers, see what questions they're asking, spend some time on a post, and then cycle back to them.

Long term strategy is having a healthy amount of crawlable content that my audience might search for.

<comment><USER6> Patrick should write a book or extract his blog into PDF form or something.

Really, I'm serious!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Great work! And I must thank you for introducing me to Intercom as well! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> You're welcome! It's a fantastic service, but they won't let me throw money at them yet :-(

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Congrats. I've been working on a SaaS web app for awhile now but I've become my own worst enemy when it comes to just finishing the damn thing. Thanks to your story I'll be getting back to work on it.

</comment><comment><USER25> Congratulations on your product. It really sounds awesome. Since this post on HN got a lot of attention do you have any stats on the number of sign-ups from here?

</comment><comment><USER26> Often I see the advice of "charge more", in light of that, the "Agency" plan at $99 per month seems low and makes me wonder if you could charge more.

<comment><AUTHOR> I probably could. In fact, I could probably charge more across the board - <USER2> of my paid users said that it's more valuable to them than they're being charged (remember: the underlying goal is to help these people get more repeat work + more money!)

<comment><USER26> remember: the underlying goal for them is for you to stay in business so they get more repeat work + more money! :D

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Great story and great advice. Congrats on the app! I love when people not just talk and actually execute.

</comment><comment><USER28> That's good money. If that keeps up, with modest growth, you can count on a steady side income.

</comment><comment><USER29> Congrats! This kinda post is what keeps HN alive for me :)</comment>


Amazon denies Skynet involvement in cloud outage - <AUTHOR> http://www.thinq.co.uk/2011/4/22/amazon-denies-skynet-involvement-cloud-outage/

<comment><USER2> So, Skynet isn't involved, but what about GLaDOS?</comment>


Amazon and Apple hit by EU tax crackdown - T-zex http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41497459 <comment><AUTHOR> What I don't understand is why Amazon and Apple are getting the punishment. They were abiding by the laws of the country they were in, and now getting punishment. Surely if any party were to be punished it would be the governments of Ireland and Luxembourg which sanctioned these agreements in the first place? It seems that the EU is less interested in law-abiding and more interested in that sweet, sweet U$D. Ex post facto law at its finest.

<comment><USER2> You clearly only read the headline because it fits your agenda. The article clearly states that the EU is ordering Ireland and Luxembourg to tax Apple and Amazon correctly instead of giving them special tax rates.

<comment><USER3> Did you read the comment you are replying to? Op said "I don't understand is why Amazon and Apple are getting the punishment" and you essentially said "The article clearly states that countries are ordered to enforce the punishment". You are talking past each other. The question is why the companies are being punished and why the states are not, not about the enforcement. What keeps Ireland and Luxembourg from doing this again? If the EU is going to strike down state-mandated tax deals, why not just require the tax deals to have approval from them in the first place?

<comment><USER4> > Did you read the comment you are replying to? [..] The question is why the > companies are being punished and why the states are not, not about the > enforcement.

It isn't a punishment, stop calling it like a punishment. There is no additional fine. The only thing which has to be paid is the due tax plus interest.

It is you who has to read. From the article:

"Meanwhile, the Commission said it planned to refer Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to recover €13bn in back taxes from tech giant Apple."

> What keeps Ireland and Luxembourg from doing this again? If the EU is going > to strike down state-mandated tax deals, why not just require the tax deals > to have approval from them in the first place?

Hopefully Ireland or Luxembourg won't let themselves be allowed to avoid taxes anymore. But since neither Apple, nor Amazon, nor Ireland, nor Luxembourg is being fined (again, there is no punishment) I'd speculate that it might still be lucrative. After all, being able to invest > interest.

<comment><USER3> > It isn't a punishment, stop calling it like a punishment.

I'm sorry, but a selectively enforced law, only applied retroactively with NO attempt to curb the practice proactively is definitely punishment for whomever they arbitrarily choose to apply it to. Were there an attempt to actually punish the offenders (the states making illegal laws), one could believe they are making an attempt at preventing this law breaking. Otherwise, one can't help but see this as one of those laws left on the book to build offenders.

> Hopefully [...]

Exactly...hopefully. The EU doesn't enforce this evenly, they don't attempt to proactively prevent it, etc. To understand the real reason these enforcements occur, ask yourself why the EU doesn't take preventative action. You'll eventually arrive at the real answer.

<comment><USER4> > I'm sorry, but a selectively enforced law, only applied retroactively with > NO attempt to curb the practice proactively is definitely punishment for > whomever they arbitrarily choose to apply it to. Were there an attempt to > actually punish the offenders (the states making illegal laws), one could > believe they are making an attempt at preventing this law breaking. > Otherwise, one can't help but see this as one of those laws left on the book > to build offenders.

Do you think it is easy to prevent? Could you describe how you'd do it, by citing the laws? If you can't, why do you assume it is so easy to prevent? Why do you assume malice?

> Exactly...hopefully. The EU doesn't enforce this evenly, they don't attempt > to proactively prevent it, etc. To understand the real reason these > enforcements occur, ask yourself why the EU doesn't take preventative > action. You'll eventually arrive at the real answer.

If I see someone breaking the law, and there are no proactive measures in place to prevent the law, then that means that the intend of the lawmaker is illicit?

What makes you think the EU can enforce this evenly? The whole structure of double Irish with a Dutch sandwich isn't even available to EU companies to begin with.

You gotta start somewhere, if you want to fight it. Same with the war against drugs. Would the drugs baron's defense be: "but the others are frolicking around freely?" Would your response still be when the first action is being taken: "they're not doing enough to prevent?"

As for other tax avoidance, yes, the EU and its states are most definitely looking into those. Starbucks is an example I already mentioned elsewhere throughout the thread (hint: Ctrl+F). Here's another example regarding the Dutch railroad company [1]. That's also an Irish construction, btw.

[1] [https://www.ad.nl/economie/fiscus-onderzoekt-ierse- belasting...](https://www.ad.nl/economie/fiscus-onderzoekt-ierse- belastingconstructie-ns~a5f7c220/)

<comment><USER3> > Do you think it is easy to prevent? Could you describe how you'd do it, by > citing the laws? If you can't, why do you assume it is so easy to prevent? > Why do you assume malice?

While I cannot cite the specific laws, when a jurisdiction makes rules regarding contractual arrangements like this, and they are continually broken, I would expect they insert themselves into the process sooner rather than later. Why not require all member state tax arrangements that are below a required threshold be submitted to the EU tax regulators for approval? Instead of waiting on the regulators to get around to them anyways? And put leverage on the countries to be punished if they don't follow these rules? What leverage can the EU put on a country to abide by EU law? Why is that leverage not being applied here?

I think the analogies with burglary and drug war and what not aren't really helpful. When I say "evenly" I don't mean they have to have the resources to apply to everyone. I just mean sans prejudice. I'll just take a statement saying what their priority order is? If they just come out and say "largest offenders first", I think that's ok.

To reiterate a point I made in the above paragraph, what leverage does the EU have to keep member states from flaunting their laws? Why is that leverage not applied to Ireland and Luxembourg in this instance? I am a bit unfamiliar, so I will take any information on what the EU is doing to stop countries from doing this.

<comment><USER4> > While I cannot cite the specific laws, when a jurisdiction makes rules > regarding contractual arrangements like this, and they are continually > broken, I would expect they insert themselves into the process sooner rather > than later.

Because it isn't in their benefit to, just like the interests of California might not align with those from Delaware, or those from California or Delaware might not align with those from the federal government. Ireland benefited as well from these deals via more tax income, and more jobs. So it is in the benefit of the Irish government to stall this process as much as they can. It buys them time, and there's seemingly no fine anyway. At least, not yet.

> I'll just take a statement saying what their priority order is? If they just > come out and say "largest offenders first", I think that's ok.

They don't even know which company is the largest offender before they researched it. Looking at the article, it says: "The decision on Amazon follows a three-year long investigation by the European Commission, which said in 2014 that it had suspicions the arrangement had broken EU rules" 3 years of investigation, yet not even a fine. Do you think the EU is making money here, paying people for 3 years for investigating? The clear loser is the European taxpayer. In the long run, the European taxpayer is better off with companies paying tax than without.

I linked you the list of companies following this construction. They're all US companies. If your argument is they should go for EU companies first, well, there are none following _this_ construction.

I'm curious where you're from, so I can get a picture about your news bubble. I assume your native language is English? If you think only US companies are being targeted by tax departments, then you're probably sitting in some kind of bubble, sorry. I already linked various articles throughout this thread. I gave you information regarding Shell and Nationale Spoorwegen (Dutch raidroad company). Allegations, reactions, and investigations to the Panama Papers are another example [1] [2]. If we look specifically at Britain, we can notice football clubs, real estate, but also politicians themselves. That could certainly explain their lack of action towards their own avoidance. However, that doesn't justify it (no "tu quoque"), nor does it mean all politicians resort to tax avoidance.

> To reiterate a point I made in the above paragraph, what leverage does the > EU have to keep member states from flaunting their laws? Why is that > leverage not applied to Ireland and Luxembourg in this instance? I am a bit > unfamiliar, so I will take any information on what the EU is doing to stop > countries from doing this.

It is in the article:

"Meanwhile, the Commission said it planned to refer Ireland to the European Court of Justice for failing to recover €13bn in back taxes from tech giant Apple."

The leverage just got escalated. The wheels of justice grind slowly...

I've seen my country (NL) getting reprimanded about various things by the EC. An example is that downloading copyright infringed content was legal in NL. In a court case though, NL got reprimanded that it is illegal, so it is now by Dutch law (since 2014 or so IIRC). The Dutch government also got a slap on the wrist regarding Starbucks. Eventually, if local governments don't comply, there are going to be financial consequences. We don't know the outcome here yet. We're 3 years in, still no outcome. Does that mean its unjustified? Seems according to your line of reasoning: Yes.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers#Allegations.2C_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers#Allegations.2C_reactions.2C_and_investigations)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/business/taxavoidance](https://www.theguardian.com/business/taxavoidance)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's good that the EU is taking steps against these unfair deals, but IMHO it's not enough. In this "web era", we just can't accept that it's enough to open your headquarters in Luxembourg to only pay Luxembourg corporate taxes, when actually your EU operation is like 97% outside of Luxembourg. It's just not sustainable, it needs to change - Luxembourg is just stealing taxes from all other EU countries, that's all.

<comment><USER6> Luxembourg has a 29% corporate tax rate the 4th highest in Europe. This isn't Liechtenstein, Ireland or Estonia... Unlike Ireland Luxembourg also did not hand out tax credits.

Shell paid less than 1 bln US in tax last year in the EU, and less than 5 bln US globally, and overall it's by far much more subsidized than Apple or Amazon, the difference being it's a European corporation.

Most of not all of the largest European corporations excel at Tax avoidance, in fact they are the ones Google, Apple and Amazon learned the tricks of the trade from, heck the EU was just fine establishing tax heavens for their own corporations and canonizing them in EU law as long as they are the ones benefiting from them.

<comment><USER7> One corporation doing something morally wrong and getting away with it doesn't excuse another company for doing the same. "He did it first" doesn't work on the playground and neither should it work in corporate law.

<comment><USER8> There's nothing morally wrong with reducing one's tax burden to the extent that is legally permissible. From Judge Learned Hand: "Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands"

<comment><USER9> >There's nothing morally wrong with reducing one's tax burden to the extent that is legally permissible.

Yes there is. It may not be _legally_ wrong, but it sure is _morally_ wrong. What matters is the spirit of the law. The fact that big corporations can hire squads of lawyers and search and identify loopholes that allow them to pay outrageously low taxes on outrageously high revenues doesn't make it morally acceptable, even if they technically are following the letter of the law.

Add to that the fact that these loopholes and exploits are kept in place by fierce (and expensive) lobbying efforts from those very same companies and people.

<comment><USER10> > It may not be legally wrong, but it sure is morally wrong.

Ah now. Governments don't just use taxes to raise revenue, but also for incentives. If they tax moving cash abroad to help with the balance of payments and you restructure your company to avoid doing this then everyone is happy. It doesn't excuse manipulating the government to make favourable tax laws however.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Not enough.

A 250M fine is almost a joke. Companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc, save Billions of dollars every single year by setting up "creative" tax schemes.

A 250M fine is almost an incentive to keep doing it.

<comment><USER12> The EU needs to find a balance though - too little and they'll just keep doing it, like what you're saying. Too much though, and a few things will happen:

* They will spend 10+ years in courts to fight it; paying a team of lawyers to fight the ruling or at least postpone having to pay it will be cheaper than paying it. * They'll get out and find a new tax haven.

250 - 500 million seems to be a figure that gets paid eventually (see also EU/RealPlayer vs MS). Higher than that and they'll find a way to not have to pay it and annoy a lot of people - legally.

<comment><USER13> Amazon will leave the EU to find a tax haven? Like stop trading?? Because if they're tradinging here then they've not left the jurisdiction of the EU - we're talking about Amazon, whose zero-hour workers have to be supported by social care, making slightly less profit.

They reportedly paid £15M tax on profit of c.£20 Billion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have always this question in my mind, If Amazon never made any profits, ( They are ALL invested back to somewhere ), or they decide to borrow $50 Billion, and have any profits left over from investment being paid to the loan's interest.

Basically there are Zero profits.

Why would there be Tax?

It doesn't matter if you are in US, EU, or anywhere else in the world. Surely No Profits = No Collected tax, or am i missing something obvious?

<comment><USER15> Tax law is quite complex. Even for taxes based on profits, it is non-trivial to tie patterns of revenue and expense to particular tax jurisdictions (much less particular geographical locations).

This is particularly true in the age of e-commerce - did the revenue occur where the purchaser clicked an icon, where a server received the buy message, where a server recorded/confirmed the transaction, where a bank sent/received currency, where a warehouse dispatched an item (what if it's a digital item), where the item was received, all of the above, some of the above depending on ever shifting tax law in multiple jurisdictions? There are more and different questions related to expenses. For example, should it have some relationship to where employees are located?

Armies of people work every day to prevent upsetting some tax jurisdiction while minimizing tax expense. It's a sisyphean task. Compared to Amazon's revenues, $250m is a rounding error, so they have very good accountants working for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I see all the EU state aid and Single Market specialists are on here giving there expert opinions.

</comment><comment><USER17> eu tax crackdown.

just another smoke screen while "the union" is on fire to keep the sheep calm and comfy on their fucking couch. greece? nobody's talking about that anymore. britain's decision to leave in peace? they're screwing around with that. catalonia? shows you the "values" of this great europe.

votes have shown that people are greatly unhappy and the clowns in brussels have nothing better to do than to pretend a few corporate bucks will benefit the people.

<comment><USER18> Well one thing is for certain, it is becoming easier to time shorts on certain European asset classes exposed to these political games…

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> When Caesar divorced Pompeia, he said "my wife ought not even to be under suspicion". As a European I feel the same about the way the EU is plundering US tech companies. Maybe they really broke the law, but you should be above suspicion. When VW has not paid any fines in Europe for the emissions scandal, it's hard not to be suspicious about what's going on.

The Eurostoxx 50 is still below its 2007 peak (and that peak was below the 2000 peak). GDP growth has been pathetic. Almost a decade into the Greek crisis they're still just kicking the can down the road. Is the EU trying to be a productive economic system or a kleptocracy that survives on the scraps it can extract from the Americans? Get your house in order, then maybe these fines would not look as bad.

<comment><USER20> This is not how this works at all. The issue at hand is "illegal state aid". Briefly, in the EU, member states may not unfairly favor local businesses by subsidizing them [1]. This includes subsidies via tax breaks that favor some companies over others.

Now, you can have reasonable disagreement about whether those tax breaks are indeed illegal state aid or not (in the case of Apple in Ireland, reasonable arguments have been advanced for both sides). But this is not about plundering US companies: it's about large companies not getting special favors from the state. The tax breaks would not be owed to the EU, but to the member state that gave them the illegal tax break.

The Volkswagen situation is different, as this is not about antitrust law, and the EU has much less power outside antitrust cases [2]. That does not mean that the European Commission hasn't tried to exert political pressure on Volkswagen [3] and the member states [4], but it is bound by the powers granted by the EU treaties.

[1] There are exemptions in the treaties, such as for charities or in response to a crisis or natural disaster. It also only affects state aid that distorts or risks distortion of competition.

[2] European carmakers _have_ been hammered hard in the past for antitrust violations, too, such as: [http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-16-2582_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-16-2582_en.htm)

[3] [http://www.politico.eu/article/how-not-to-lobby-juncker- the-...](http://www.politico.eu/article/how-not-to-lobby-juncker-the- volkswagen-way/)

[4] [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions- eu/e...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-eu/eu-takes- legal-action-against-germany-uk-over-vw-scandal-idUSKBN13X14N)

<comment><USER19> >But this is not about plundering US companies

Starbucks, Apple, Amazon, McDonald's...do you notice a pattern? The suggestion that the Commission is not targeting big US companies is comical (especially in the light of similar actions with other justifications, like the 2.7b fine on Google for their shopping search), as is their interpretation of both tax law and illegal state aid.

The commission doesn't even challenge the transfer pricing laws, they just interpret them differently and based on their interpretation they decide that the tax authorities have granted a selective advantage. The procedure is completely arbitrary as its entire basis is the disagreement between the commission and the tax authorities. Given the complexity of corporate structures and tax law, and the inherent ambiguities of things like transfer pricing, such disagreements can be generated wherever the commission wants to find them. If they wanted to target Chinese companies it would be trivial to conjure up similar issues.

It's particularly ironic that a law against selective treatment of corporations is being used to selectively punish some of them.

<comment><USER20> > Starbucks, Apple, Amazon, McDonald's...do you notice a pattern? The > suggestion that the Commission is not targeting big US companies is comical, > as is their interpretation of both tax law and illegal state aid.

If you selectively only pick the cases against US companies because that's what you hear about in the US media, but ignore the cases against EU companies, then I can see how you can get that impression. But it's not really the full picture.

More importantly, and regardless of what you think of the merits, the EU is not the beneficiary, since those tax breaks are to be paid to the respective member state. The benefit for the EU – one way or another – is a more competitive environment, not the money it does not even get. So, "plundered" is an inaccurate term either way.

And you hear a lot about big US companies, because (1) smaller US companies are less likely to operate in the EU and (2) US antitrust law has been watered down since the late 1970s (starting with Bork's "Antitrust Paradox"), leading to a concentration of corporate power that's simply not present in Europe [1]. As a result, antitrust cases against EU companies tend to be more about collusion, while antitrust cases against US companies in the EU tend to be more about abuse of a dominant market position.

[1] See, for example, OECD self-employment rates and how America is near the bottom: [https://data.oecd.org/emp/self-employment- rate.htm](https://data.oecd.org/emp/self-employment-rate.htm)

<comment><USER21> Do you have any idea of a good data source showing the total amount of state aid fines imposed by the EC? One source I've found [0] suggests that total state aid fines by the Commission from 2005-2015 were somewhere on the order of 2.5 billion euro, which is dwarfed by the 13-15 billion euro fine Apple is facing. But I may be misreading the report I found/missing some better data.

[0] rlegutko.pl/download/en-nieuczciwa-konkurencja-polityka- insight-270320171.pdf, see Chart 8 on page 18.

<comment><USER20> There is no such thing as a fine for state aid. Member states are required to recover illegal state aid from the beneficiaries, with interest.

Recovery of state aid is uncommon, since most governments simply seek approval for exemptions beforehand (such as the UK for Hinkley Point) and so there are relatively few large incidents of illegal state aid. Especially as it's rare for a government to throw that much money at a single company without great need, illegal or not.

<comment><USER21> Thanks, that's helpful. Although, from your answer I take it that U.S. companies are, in fact, the major subjects of these high-profile EC enforcement actions and there are not actions of similar magnitude against EU companies that I've missed. (That could be entirely just and appropriate, of course.)

<comment><USER20> It's mostly Apple that's an outlier here, with €13 billion owed (contingent upon the ECJ not overturning that), and that's over a period of 12 years.

Amazon has to pay back €250 million, which is a pittance compared to their annual EU revenue of over €20 billion, and that was originally triggered by the LuxLeaks revelations, which are also hitting (say) IKEA, which is reportedly being investigated for over €1 billions in illegal tax breaks [1].

One interesting aspect of the Apple case is that the American federal government may not actually mind Apple getting slapped around a bit; Apple not repatriating its foreign profits has been an issue for quite some time, and that only works out for Apple because Apple can park those in tax havens abroad.

[1] [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-ikea-taxavoidance/eu- re...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-ikea-taxavoidance/eu-regulators- to-examine-lawmakers-report-on-ikea-taxes-idUSKCN0VO19C)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm actually quite pro europe, but the insidious influence of the French in particular and, to a geat extent in other ways, the Germans, over their desire for economic imperialistic dominion (now enriched tenfold with GB no longer party to anything going on) is a problem.

Ireland is a very small country with no natural resources. Its way of participating in the EU's drive for growth was the nation's economic policy and its well educated population as a base for American companies to bridge into Europe.

France clearly is bent out of shape because if other EU members can survive without gouging business, citizens et al with incredible levels of punitive taxation, then they can't continue their own shakedown forever without seeing business flight. Sooner or later they will have to relent and reduce their own taxes.

Same with the pursuit of Google, MS, Facebook et al. by Eurocrats with open portfolios.

Its an old fashioned shake down by the biggest self protecting bureaucracy outside of China. In my opinion.

<comment><USER23> What?

The internet is global and taxes are local. Why should governments allow a race to the bottom on tax rates?

<comment><USER22> There are more variables than tax rate behind business decisions.

<comment><USER24> > Ireland is a very small country with no natural resources. Its way of > participating in the EU's drive for growth was the nation's economic policy

Irelands economic policy is "no taxes, make your EU HQ here!", so you just argued for the exact opposite position a few minutes before. Which one is it?

<comment><USER22> It isn't no taxes. And yes certain deals were struck, still supported by the democratically elected government.

You will have noticed every company in the world hasn't relocated... so yes, there are other variables.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Copyright statements do not need the year - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ntpsec.org/2020/02/15/copyright-year.html <comment><USER2> Copyright statements themselves are not required by Berne convention. Copyright exists by default whether or not you put a copyright statement.</comment>


The information bell cannot be unrung - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2280593/

<comment><AUTHOR> From TFA: "The rush to delete embarrassing, incriminating, or inconvenient Web pages in the wake of breaking news makes no sense."

Unfortunately it actually make a lot of sense because most people won't dig through Google's cache or archive.org to find out how political leaders are attempting to rewrite history.</comment>


WOT Firefox Addon selling user data - <AUTHOR> http://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/netzwelt/Nackt-im-Netz-Millionen-Nutzer-ausgespaeht,nacktimnetz100.html <comment><USER2> In a similar vein, I had a negative experience with a chrome add-on regarding injected ads.

One day out of nowhere I started seeing obvious non Google ads in my Google searches. Took me forever to realize some QR generator I downloaded years ago was injected them after the page load.

Tried looking up the add-on within the chrome marketplace and the plugin was no longer listed.

Turns out the developers executed a common path of creating a legit plugin then after a large userbase has been established, push an update containing ad injecting code and de-list themselves from the marketplace. Very shady.

</comment><comment><USER3> For those interested, this[1] appears to be info regarding this article, but in English.

1: [http://www.ghacks.net/2016/11/01/browsing-history- sold/](http://www.ghacks.net/2016/11/01/browsing-history-sold/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More details in the Debian bug report:

[https://bugs.debian.org/842939](https://bugs.debian.org/842939)

</comment><comment><USER4> Uninstalled from Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Sick to my stomach. Now I have to let my contact network know, as I've endorsed WOT to many of them.

</comment><comment><USER3> I use the quality of writing as a side channel to _help_ me assess how valid a story is. Having to use google translate negates that possibility for me, as it obscures this information. Since I know nothing about the site, can someone vouch for the quality of the site, reporting, and evidence, and possibly provide a summary (or point towards one)?

<comment><USER5> Think German BBC.

<comment><USER3> Thank you. I have the _gist_ of what's being said from Google translate, but do you know if they perhaps have an English translation they supply that I'm missing (I understand it's unlikely)? Whatever specific details might be conveyed by the language seem to be obscured by bad translation software.

Edit: Found [http://www.ghacks.net/2016/11/01/browsing-history- sold/](http://www.ghacks.net/2016/11/01/browsing-history-sold/), so nevermind (unless you think that's not an accurate portrayal of the German article).

<comment><USER5> NDR is a part of ARD responsible for northern Germany. I think it is unlikely, that they have an English version. Deutsche Welle (international) [0] and Arte (French-German) [1] are their only foreign language services that come to mind.

[0] [https://www.dw.com](https://www.dw.com)

[1] [https://www.arte.tv](https://www.arte.tv)

<comment><USER3> Thanks. I figured it was unlikely, but this seems interesting enough that it was worth asking. I did find what appears to be a fair summary in English though (added above).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I assume the chrome extension is as well. Uninstalled.

</comment><comment><USER7> Wew, is WOT still alive?</comment>


Thailand's Unemployment Rate Is 0.6% - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-02/thailand-s-unemployment-rate-is-a-ridiculously-low-0-6-here-s-why <comment><USER2> Kind of misleading data. The number of cab/tuk tuk drivers and street vendors is astounding, way more than there should be. Technically employed, but driving the wage down.

<comment><USER3> > The number of cab/tuk tuk drivers and street vendors is astounding, way more > than there should be.

How many there should be?

> Technically employed, but driving the wage down.

If they are sustaining themselves with the work they are doing, I don't see what is so "technical" about it.

<comment><USER2> We don't know if they're sustaining themselves. And given the oversupply of labour, I suspect they barely are.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> While I agree with the general conclusion of the other comments nobody seems to get the reasons right. Yes, the number is incorrect. But they don't need to make up the number. If you don't offer any social security system, then there is no reason for people to go to the office. They don't go because of "cultural" reasons. They don't go because there's no benefit. In a country like Germany you actually get money and basic products like fridge, apartment, maybe even a TV. If you have to choose between trying something crazy/risky or going to the agency most people in Germany will go to the job agency. No cultural reason, just rewards.

So in the end nobody is lying but the basic structure of the system is different which makes different true numbers. to make a more reasonable comparison the unofficial workers should be counted instead of the unemployed. But the thing is that they are hard to count.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think the number is BS. The Thai government lies at least as much as the US government.

Forget the government numbers. The reality is that in Thailand, as in most countries, the public assistance/social safety net available is so inadequate it might as well not exist. Its not that the government doesn't try. Its just that the reality of contemporary economics means that providing an adequate social safety net, even in the wealthiest countries, is difficult to impossible. Well, let me qualify that a bit. The last I heard, they did have public healthcare, although the standards lag far behind private providers.

There may be a way to make the rules more fair for poorer people or poorer countries or to make people more secure in terms of basic needs. Right now though the structures don't align well with those goals. And most countries have to work within the same economic structure but with vastly fewer resources than the US.

<comment><USER6> The article seems to admit as much, in that 0.6 isn't a cut-and-dry figure.

What strikes me though is that a number like this should be reason for panic. Economies try to shoot for unemployment numbers (realistically calculated ones) around 5%. (varies, see: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_employment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_employment) )

As unemployment drops below 5%, it becomes harder to find workers in many fields, and the problem gets worse the lower you go. Down around 2-3% and you're facing an acute labor shortage, which leads to inflation and reduces investment in your country because there's no workers to fill new openings.

But in short, I agree with you, the numbers rest on simply faulty logic, because if they were calculated by other means, Thailand's economy should be in crisis. But it isn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If there is no social security system, then how does the government (or anyone else) gets to this number?

Let's assume for a moment that the number in the article is correct, it's important to understand that Thailand's culture has a form of social security build in. In Thailand it's very normal for children to take not only care of their parents (financially) but also the rest of their family. So, maybe from a cultural point of view, Thailand doesn't need a social security system and might also be the reason why the number in the article is so low.

<comment><USER8> The unemployment rate of the US is _not_ based on those collecting benefits, but a broad household survey by a separate agency (BLS). Thus its calculation doesn't depend on the unemployment-insurance/welfare/social-security systems at all.</comment></comment>


'The West' is, in fact, the world's biggest gated community - <AUTHOR> https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/walled-world <comment><USER2> If I manage to hop the fence into a gated community, the HOA is unlikely to offer me a free house and a pool key. Unfortunately that is exactly what the west is doing now. Whether this insanity is the cause or result of the west's decline is hard to say. Probably it is both.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strange_Death_of_Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Strange_Death_of_Europe)</comment>


Whoever Designed This Product Should Be Fired (re:Kindle) - <AUTHOR> http://www.centernetworks.com/robert-scoble-kindle-review

<comment><USER2> It's "whoever", not "whomever".

<comment><USER3> _It's "whoever", not "whomever"._

The comma goes inside of double quotes, as does the period.

<comment><USER2> Only if you're American. If you're British, it's correct as it is.

<comment><USER3> <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7116290.stm> <\-- All but one has comma inside. Inexplicable, that one.

<comment><USER2> From the article:

... the commander of this "great force".

Despite his having preached "enlightened moderation", President Musharraf ...

How I understand it is this: in British English you don't place punctuation in situations where the quotes serve to offset and not so much to quote a source. (Do you understand what I mean? When the quote is a letter, number or just a word or two.) To be honest, I always thought that of American English as well, but I guess I'm wrong.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Something Borrowed: Kenneth Goldsmith's Controversial Conceptual Poetry - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/05/something-borrowed-wilkinson <comment><USER2> There's something hollow about this kind of art. It's too much of the intellect. I prefer the writing of someone like Cormac McCarthy - done with real craftsmanship and exploring the moral dimensions of life through plain storytelling, with _feeling_.

</comment><comment><USER3> I sure see a lot of Kenneth Goldmith on HN lately. I wonder if its self- publicity? Or, maybe I,m here too much?

<comment><AUTHOR> This article was actually my first time hearing about him.</comment></comment>


Tesla announces Q4 deliveries; full year delivery slightly below expectations - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2017/01/03/tesla-announces-q4-deliveries-22200-delivered-24882-produced-full-year-deliveries-76230-slightly-below-expectations-of-80000/ <comment><USER2> I read this as "We're making cars we have no buyer for, to sit in showrooms, just to meet our target."</comment>


Search News YC (unofficial) - <AUTHOR> http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I wrote this because I wanted to look for some old articles which were no longer listed. I started crawling News YC over night at a slow rate, and it is still going, so many of the latest links and comments are not indexed yet.

I threw the code together, so feel free to report any bugs you encounter. However, I won't have time to touch this for the next few days.

I imagine at some time News YC will have a search feature implemented (it may even be today with all the recent changes), so Paul, let me know if you want this removed.

<comment><USER2> Wow; my slight annoyance at having someone write software I wish I was writing (instead of working on my damned talk for startup school) is outweighed by how impressed I am at your initiative. Plus it's actually useful...

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Thanks, Jason. This is great.

</comment><comment><USER4> good initiative. well done.</comment>


With Fungi in the Mix, Concrete Can Fill Its Own Cracks - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/with-fungi-in-mix-concrete-can-fill-its-own-cracks-180967911/?no-ist <comment><USER2> Or perhaps we could go back to using lime[0], which has long been known to be naturally self-healing[1], and has been used throughout history to build structures that (literally) stand the test of time[3]. And let's not forget: considerably less CO2 emissions during its lifetime[4].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_mortar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_mortar)

[2] _Self-healing of lime based mortars: microscopy observations on case studies_ [https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:ff226ad0...](https://repository.tudelft.nl/islandora/object/uuid:ff226ad0-ffb2-4b4c-bdb6-9881961bc7f1/datastream/OBJ)

[3] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(material)#Roman_concrete](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_\(material\)#Roman_concrete)

[4] [http://ecolime.co.uk/c02-quick-facts/](http://ecolime.co.uk/c02-quick- facts/)

<comment><USER3> I thought the secret of Roman concrete was the Tufa, a pyroclastic sand, which was used, for instance, in the construction of the Port of Ostia. This civic work has 2000 year old concrete that's intact and in direct content with the sea water.

<comment><USER4> I thought it was the use of pozzolana--glassy aluminosilicate volcanic ash-- along with lime. The Roman _marine_ concrete may also have an advantage from being mixed with _seawater_. It gets stronger in saltwater. Portland cement concrete with iron rebar gets weaker in seawater, because the rebar swells and makes the concrete spall off.

Although it is true that sand from different geologic deposits can show vastly different results when used in the same building product. Superior binder plus superior aggregate could make superior concrete.

<comment><USER5> I think there is a fair amount of interest in pozzolana type cements because it's becoming apparent that portland cement + rebar has a finite life.

> sand from different geologic deposits can show vastly different results

That's the other bugaboo about portland cement, Aggregate expansion/alkali- silica reaction/concrete cancer. They used the wrong type of aggregate and dune sand in the old foundation of my house (rental not my problem unless I'm in it during the next earthquake). So now it's crumbling.

Granted if you keep reinforced portland cement dry, it's fine. Otherwise eventually it'll fail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I for one would love to see something like this happen, but I think ultimately this will always be limited to niche applications.

A developer recently built a 20 story apartment building next to my office window using entirely a reinforced concrete frame. I was incensed to find out that because of "concrete cancer" [1], the lifespan of that building may be less than 70 years. But the more I thought about it, the more I began to believe that maybe the additional lifespan is not an asset. The building is attractive today, but might not (probably won't) appeal to people 40 years from now. Furthermore, buyers are going to want different things from their homes (look at the popularity of open kitchens 40 years ago vs now). And I began to realize that it would be quite difficult to design and build a building that would be useful beyond 70 years from now.

Another way to look at it is that the marginal value of 10 years of longevity is not that large out 80-90 years. I think you'd have a difficult time finding a developer who would pay 10% extra to get a building that lasts 100 years instead of 90.

This line of reasoning leads to an icky "planned obsolescence" approach, but I think these are the economic realities.

[1] [http://www.remedial.com.au/structural-repairs/concrete- cance...](http://www.remedial.com.au/structural-repairs/concrete-cancer)

<comment><USER7> As someone who lives in a building that is 70 years old, I can tell you pipes (brass?) only last about 70 years.. redoing piping in place is a major pain. If the location wasn't so good I'd be gone long ago..

<comment><USER8> Pipes can last centuries or only years, depending on the material, the temperature, and the solutes in the water — even without getting into cases where the pipes actually break. Both lead and copper (which is more common than brass!) can last centuries in cold water that isn't chemically aggressive. Heck, in Boston a few years back, they dug up some _wood_ pipes that were installed in the 1700s.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I find it funny that one of the sub-plots of Wolfenstein: The New Order is sabotaging Nazi super concrete using fungi implanted in the mix at the factory.

</comment><comment><USER10> The article glosses over how the spores could expect to respond during the highly saturated setting phase. It is reasonable to assume they could cause deformations or web-like weak points in new concrete by being too active well before they are intended to be active. I think getting a predictable outcome during setting is probably the challenge.

</comment><comment><USER11> I never understood why our isn't aerated concrete more popular in the US.its lighter and insulates heat and noise so much better.

<comment><USER12> Insulation is not as easy to achieve once you consider structure framing in poured concrete, and humidity load (AAC is very permeable to moisture).

[http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/qa- spotlight/...](http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/qa- spotlight/does-autoclaved-aerated-concrete-make-sense)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is a waterproofing product called xypex that coats concrete. When you get it wet its crystalline structure grows to fill cracks. It sounds similar to what the article talks about. It looks good as well so if youre building a house consider using it instead of the black tar typically coating a foundation.

</comment><comment><USER14> Article from 2017 on same subject [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608717/how-mushrooms- coul...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/608717/how-mushrooms-could-repair- our-crumbling-infrastructure/)

Similar process with bacteria rather than fungus from 3 years ago [http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/14/tech/bioconcrete-delft- jonkers...](http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/14/tech/bioconcrete-delft-jonkers/)

</comment><comment><USER15> _As they grow, they'll work as a catalyst within the calcium-rich conditions of the concrete to promote precipitation of calcium carbonate crystals. These mineral deposits can fill in the cracks._

Pure calcium carbonate is not as strong as concrete. It sounds like this will just fill in cracks with weaker material, hiding them from inspection, which would be even worse --- the strength of the material is degrading but not visibly.

</comment><comment><USER16> Still just an idea; not ever been tried apparently.</comment>


Show HN: Create beautiful polls which resist fraud - <AUTHOR> https://real.vote <comment><USER2> Resists fraud by collecting credit card numbers and charging for votes. Unsubscribe.

<comment><USER3> I do not have a credit card, and do not want "beautiful" polls. But, I think, as they mentioned if you are not subscribed then you cannot "unsubscribe" (I see nothing about subscribing anywhere on that web page, although I do not know how Stripe is working; I found something about subscriptions there but I don't know how that works or even if that is being used here; presumably it isn't). However, I started making up my own poll software (based on plain text, not HTML), so you might look once I do, in case you don't like this one.</comment></comment>


Study:Cardiogram and Apple Watch accurately determine atrial fibrillation - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/21/cardiogram-atrial-fibrillation/ <comment><USER2> Hi all! I'm a co-founder at Cardiogram and a co-author on this study -- please let me know if you have any questions.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think there's an inconsistency with the title of the article and what's mentioned. The title suggests that the study used 'Cardiogram and Apple watch'. However in the article it says that other wearable were also part of this study:

> Now, the startup is reaching a new milestone, this morning publishing the > first large-N peer-reviewed clinical study showing that the Apple Watch and > other wearables can detect atrial fibrillation with a high degree of > accuracy.</comment></comment>


Antarctica Is Melting, and Giant Ice Cracks Are Just the Start - <AUTHOR> http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/07/antarctica-sea-level-rise-climate-change/ <comment><USER2> I just came back from 7 months on one of the U.S. research stations, doing network engineering and glacier search and rescue. It was pretty interesting to see how fast the glacier face the station was near was retreating each year.

edit: did an AMA while there that hit the reddit front page

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5656e1/iama_i_dont_ha...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5656e1/iama_i_dont_have_a_lot_of_time_but_network/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've found the coverage of this Larsen C rift to be disquieting since I read that the people studying it don't link the event to climate change:

>"The team say they have no evidence to link the growth of this rift, and the eventual calving, to climate change." [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170602112819.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170602112819.htm)

It seems that everyone in the media or commenting on the internet suddenly knows better than the experts on this topic.

<comment><USER4> All they said was that they don't have evidence for a link, which may be because there is no link, there is a link but they haven't found the evidence yet, or a link was never within the scope of their study.

You're basically claiming they found evidence disproving a link with the "don't link the event to climate change."

<comment><USER3> >'You're basically claiming they found evidence disproving a link with the "don't link the event to climate change."'

No I am not. But by default I would assume all such events (really every event on earth) are somehow linked to climate change... it is exceptional to me that they claim to have no evidence for this.

Edit: Isn't it interesting that everyone except them (who are the apparent experts here) seems to have no problem linking it with climate change, including me?

<comment><USER5> This comes up a lot in climate discussions. There's a record hurricane or heat wave, but these things happen randomly so there's no way to say definitively that one particular event would not have happened without climate change.

But we do know that overall, climate change causes stronger hurricanes and hotter heat waves.

In the same way, we know smoking causes lung cancer, but if you're a smoker who gets lung cancer, nobody can say for sure that the smoking caused it, because some nonsmokers get lung cancer too. They just don't get it as often.

<comment><USER6> "But we do know that overall, climate change causes stronger hurricanes" How do we know this? I can find all sorts of papers predicting stronger hurricanes, but just like the predictions of more numerous hurricanes, there seems to be little observational evidence of the effect.

Here's the measured Accumulated Cyclone Energy, worldwide, 1970-2016. The total energy seems to peak in the mid 1990s. Is this consistent with claims of stronger hurricanes and more destructive hurricane seasons?

[https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/accumulated_cyclone_e...](https://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/accumulated_cyclone_energy.asp?basin=gl)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Wow... just wow. I'm overwhelmingly under-learned on this topic, but from the sounds of scientists, shit is literally hitting the fan. What books and research in the last couple years are good for non-scientists about the effects of rising oceans on socio-economics and politics?

<comment><USER8> It will be hard to find anything that isn't exceedingly one-sided if socio- economics and politics are involved. One thing to remember when you read that stuff is that the poorest are the ones that suffer the most from the regulations we put in place. For example, I support taxation on any product or service with externalities where it's nearly impossible to price the damage done into the product naturally. Pollution is a perfect example of this. I buy oil from you, but third parties are harmed. Therefore somehow I need to pay a tax and compensate everyone I'm harming. Anyways... who do you think this tax will harm the most? The billionaire oil barons? Of course not. They will still be billionaires. It's the poorest who need cheap fuel so they don't freeze to death in the winter.

If we manage to actually enforce anti-carbon regulation across the globe, who will be harmed the most? It's India, China, and Brazil among others who are still industrializing. It's the people who we're just trying to get _up_ to the point of actually being pretty confident they will get 1-2 meals every day... not even making them wealthy. Often these things are framed to appear to be going after the "evil rich" person who burns coal. Sure, we know burning coal kills lots of people. I would never deny those stats. No one ever talks about how many lives are saved by burning coal. As technology progresses perhaps countries will not need to burn coal to go through industrialization and pull their people off the brink of starvation, but we're nowhere near that today. So we need to consider these types of things as we talk about the socioeconomic and political ramifications of climate change. The solution can't be worse than the problem for poor people.

<comment><USER9> Distributing the revenue from said taxes back as a public dividend should solve that problem nicely. Since we're all impacted by those externalities a public dividend is only fair. And since the distributed money compensate for increased costs the tax can be pretty high, and thus effective in directing money towards alternate solutions.

<comment><USER10> ... which makes the case that proponents of such taxes are at least partially motivated by anti-capitalism and socialism.

<comment><USER9> I'm against capitalism, so that would be a fair assessment of me. But if you really want a label, try geo-libertarian, I'm definitely not a socialist.

In any case, even hard core capitalists would recognize the value in controlling extenalities to help the market economy do its things.

If it helps I'm not a proponent of taxes per se. The tax I'm advocating could just as easily be described as rent. It is my hope that a fair, and effective, rent extraction from our shared capital (land, pollution rights, spectrum bands and so forth) could actually help abolish unfair and damaging taxes like income taxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Yes, it is melting and some of the before/after photographs are the most devastating evidence.

There are some famous photos of Patagonia 100 years ago and today...anyone remember them?

I managed to find these before/after photos of glaciers in Alaska.

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2972130/Globa...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2972130/Global- warming-s-effects-glaciers-revealed-Amazing-shots-disappearing-ice- past-125-years.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> The greed of those already dead will kill us all.

</comment><comment><USER13> Some perspective from someone who is definitely concerned about climate change: antarctica as a whole is losing 100 cubic kilometers of ice per year [1] of its 30,000,000 cubic kilometers[2]. So at current burn rates it will be another 300,000 years before antarctica has melted. Short of radical acceleration, we aren't losing antarctica any time soon.

[1][https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/20100108_Is_Antar...](https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/20100108_Is_Antarctica_Melting.html)

[2][https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/antarctic_ice_sheet.htm](https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/antarctic_ice_sheet.htm)

</comment><comment><USER14> We should start angling for the contracts to build the seawalls that big cities are going to need over the next 50 years.

<comment><USER15> And there's way more to it than that. Waste water will have to be pumped out of storm water systems rather than flowing. Salt enters ground water and causes changes. Things like underground car parks become problematic. Rivers don't flow the same and may need gates to keep high tides and storm surges out. The flow changes cause silting and river travel can be affected. Storm surges should be handled by your wall, but they are terrifying for low lying areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Could ice shelves breaking off accelerate the rate with which methane hydrocarbons are launched into the atmoshpere?

</comment><comment><USER17> The real problem here is businesses who are causing this are externalizing their costs to everyone else. So I have to buy an expensive EV, I have to willingly pay more for energy, I must willingly inconvenience myself to bring a reusable bag to the grocery store. Until we make those who are causing this pay the real costs, we will never see any meaningful change. The worst part is also that those countries that choose not to have any restrictions will inevitably move ahead, economically, of those that do and slowly weaken those that do have restrictions. The only real solution to this problem is complete collapse or ubiquitous market forces that make the environmental choice also the best fiscal choice.

</comment><comment><USER18> How is it even possible to talk about recent acceleration in melting without mentioning the abnormally large el Nino we just had? Because it would imply the acceleration was temporary.

</comment><comment><USER19> This topic is an open ended debate. How will we reach to a conclusion? Certainly more research is a way..

</comment><comment><USER11> Launch many satellites into space which have huge reflective screens to bounce away some 1% of the light that would otherwise reach Earth.

I heard this idea suggested at least a decade ago in Popular Science. I imagine there are many such proposals to defeat global warming (beyond cutting CO2 emissions), but somehow this one stuck with me. Musk could also do it with his rockets.

</comment><comment><USER20> So is billions of dollars enough to dam these channels and bottleneck the melt?

</comment><comment><USER21> US leads the world in per capita emissions. And people on the coasts(ny/sf) are the worst offenders. Guess who will history hold responsible.

<comment><USER22> California and New York have the lowest per capita CO2 emissions except for DC according to [https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/state/analysis/](https://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/state/analysis/)

Wyoming, North Dakota have the most.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Well lucky for us global warming is a Chinese hoax. Nothing to see here, move along citizen.

</comment><comment><USER24> In 2014 Antarctic sea ice reached a record maximum:

[https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice- reach...](https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/antarctic-sea-ice-reaches-new- record-maximum)

But now in 2017 we're talking about continent-wide collapse?

<comment><USER25> The way I understood it, the article is about glaciers and ice shelves, not about antarctic sea ice extent which is largely driven by wind patterns. The more northward winds, the more sea ice.

Incidentally, antarctic sea ice extent did go from record highs 3 years ago to record lows this year.

[http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/16/world/antarctica-sea- ice-r...](http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/16/world/antarctica-sea-ice-record- low/index.html)

<comment><USER26> Second paragraph from the 2015 study linked above makes clear it is talking about land, not sea ice:

"The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How many times have we heard this story before?

<comment><USER28> Amusingly, this comment could be taken as an argument both for and against this story.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Mount S3 cloud storage directly to Windows Explorer [New link within] - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/me/stats/post/473cfffead70 <comment><USER2> This seems to have been published with a draft flag on and requires a sign in to Medium. I really want to read this post so OP hopefully you can sort this out.

<comment><AUTHOR> Apologies, try here - [https://community.couchdrop.io/hc/en- us/articles/36000135857...](https://community.couchdrop.io/hc/en- us/articles/360001358575-How-to-mount-cloud-storage-to-Windows-File-Explorer)

I'll submit again using this link</comment></comment>